Use sFTP to upload bulk edits and conversions

To create or edit large numbers of items in Search Ads 360, such as campaigns, keywords, and labels, add the new or updated items to a specially formatted spreadsheet (called a bulksheet) and upload the bulksheet to Search Ads 360. You can also use bulksheets to upload offline conversions or edit existing conversions for search engine accounts.

If you upload bulksheets frequently, you may want to use your own software to upload bulksheets to a secure FTP endpoint instead of manually uploading through the Search Ads 360 UI.

What's a secure FTP endpoint?

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a standard way of uploading files into a computer system. Secure FTP encrypts data as it's transferred over the internet. This ensures privacy and integrity of your data. Secure FTP is usually abbreviated as sFTP.

To further ensure the privacy of your data, you'll upload bulksheets to your own Search Ads 360 endpoint that's protected by a username and password. The endpoint provides a unique internet address and a separate storage area that Search Ads 360 uses to process the files. Only users with access to the username and password can upload files to your endpoint.

sFTP endpoints are created and managed at the advertiser level, so if you work with multiple advertisers in Search Ads 360, you'll need to create at least one endpoint for each advertiser.

Why use sFTP instead of the Search Ads 360 UI?

If you've created automated processes to generate bulksheets on a regular basis, your software engineers or system administrators may want to fully automate the process by sending the bulksheets to Search Ads 360 immediately after they are created.

You can also download third-party software that can upload files using sFTP. Some of these programs may be able to schedule uploads to occur on a regular basis.

Notes about using sFTP to upload bulksheets

Supported file size and formats

The supported file size and formats are the same for bulksheets that you upload through sFTP or manually through the Search Ads 360 UI.

Scope of the sFTP endpoint

For bulk edits, you can use the sFTP endpoint to upload edits in any engine account within an advertiser. Each row in the bulksheet needs to specify an engine account by providing information in either of the following columns:

• Account ID: Specifies the ID Search Ads 360 generated for the engine account.
• Account name: Specifies the name you assigned to the engine account. If you've used the same name for more than one account, use the Account ID column instead. The account ID is guaranteed to be unique.

It isn't possible to use the sFTP endpoint to upload bulk edits in multiple advertisers.

For conversions, you can use the sFTP endpoint to attribute conversions to any campaign, ad, or other item within an advertiser. Be careful if you use click IDs to attribute conversions and you have edit permission for multiple advertisers. If conversions in your bulksheet specify click IDs, Search Ads 360 will attribute the conversions to the advertiser that generated the click ID. For example:

1. You have edit permission in AdvertiserA and AdvertiserB.
2. You upload conversions to the sFTP endpoint for AdvertiserA.
3. Some of the conversions you're uploading specify click IDs that were generated for an engine account in AdvertiserB.
4. Search Ads 360 will correctly attribute the conversions to AdvertiserB, even though you uploaded conversions to AdvertiserA's endpoint. 
   
   If you didn't have edit  permission for AdvertiserB, Search Ads 360 would ignore the conversions with click IDs that were generated for an engine account in AdvertiserB.

The above scenario is only possible if you include click IDs in the conversion upload. If you use Keyword IDs and other Search Ads 360 IDs to attribute conversions, all IDs must refer to items in the advertiser's sFTP endpoint. Search Ads 360 will ignore conversions with IDs from other advertisers.

Port number for the sFTP endpoint

Search Ads 360 uses port 19321 to receive sFTP connections. This port number can't be changed.

How soon does processing start?

Search Ads 360 starts processing bulksheets as soon as possible after the sFTP upload completes. You may see a slight delay if multiple bulksheets were uploaded to Search Ads 360 at roughly the same time (for example, if different users upload bulksheets at the same time).

If you require bulksheets to be fully processed in a specific order, make sure processing of the first file is complete before uploading the next one. Search Ads 360 attempts to start processing in the order in which bulksheets are uploaded—either through the UI or an sFTP endpoint—but processing order isn't guaranteed. In addition, Search Ads 360 may finish processing a smaller bulksheet before a larger one, even if it started on the larger bulksheet first.

If you or other users upload more than one bulksheet with the same name:

• If Search Ads 360 starts processing a bulksheet before you upload the second one with the same name, the second bulksheet is treated as a separate file (even though it has the same name as the first file).
• If you upload a bulksheet through sFTP and then immediately use sFTP to upload a second bulksheet with the same name before Search Ads 360 has a chance to start processing the first bulksheet, Search Ads 360 ignores the first bulksheet and only processes the second one.

Note that Search Ads 360 doesn't email confirmation or status information about bulksheets that you upload through sFTP. Instead, you can use the Search Ads 360 UI to view upload status and history as well as download any error sheets, which list errors for items that Search Ads 360 couldn't process.